“Nature is a Sphinx”, analysis of Tyutchev’s poem. Early landscape poetry

“Nature is a sphinx. And that makes it more true...” Fyodor Tyutchev

Nature - Sphinx. And the more faithful she is
His temptation destroys a person,
What may happen, no longer
There is no riddle and she never had one.

Analysis of Tyutchev’s poem “Nature is a Sphinx. And the more true it is...”

Fyodor Tyutchev is rightfully considered a master of short quatrains, which are endowed with deep philosophical meaning. And this is not surprising, since the diplomatic service taught the poet to clearly formulate his thoughts, and natural observation gave extensive food for thought and conclusions, which formed the basis of many works. Moreover, the author himself admitted that they were born spontaneously. Tyutchev pondered some thought or idea, and the answer to the question posed was born in poetic form.

This is exactly what happened with the short quatrain “Nature is a sphinx. And that makes it more true...”, the first line of which already contains an intriguing statement. Indeed, no one has yet managed to unravel the secrets of the universe, and Tyutchev was one of those who at one time tried to do this. The author knew firsthand that in disputes about how exactly this world works, a huge number of copies were broken. However, even the poets of the 19th century were conventionally divided into romantics and philosophers. The first described the beauty of nature and sincerely admired it. The latter tried to find answers to their questions through trial and error. It is noteworthy that Tyutchev was at heart both a romantic and a philosopher, which is clearly evident from his works. However, he considered it unacceptable for himself to spend rhymes praising the world around him, trying not only to find the meaning of man’s earthly existence, but also to draw parallels between various events and phenomena.

Poem “Nature is a sphinx. And that makes it more true...” was written in 1869, when the poet was already in his seventh decade and understood perfectly well that his life was nearing its logical conclusion. It was then that he gave up trying to comprehend the secrets of this world. But not because he lost faith in his own abilities or was tired of looking for explanations for the inexplicable. The author considers nature itself to be a great temptress who has so cleverly misled humanity that it has no choice but to admit its own defeat. Meanwhile, Tyutchev does not exclude the possibility that “it may turn out that she hasn’t had any riddles since the ages.” It’s just that people themselves wanted to believe in miracles and convinced themselves that they really existed. Meanwhile, the poet himself is convinced that any phenomenon has its own logical explanation, but the world is not yet ready to receive answers to its questions.

It's no secret that Fyodor Tyutchev was a true master in writing short poems. The author filled literally a few lines that formed a quatrain with deep meaning and put a certain idea into them.

Tyutchev acquired the ability to clearly and specifically formulate his thoughts while serving as a diplomat. The poet himself says that such poetic lines were born suddenly and spontaneously. They were the so-called answer to the questions that the author so often asked himself.

One of these responses was the poem “Nature is a Sphinx. And the more true it is...”

Already the first line of this work makes the reader think and intrigues everyone. Throughout his life, Tyutchev tried to unravel the secrets of our world. He can be classified as a romantic poet who admired the beauty of the surrounding world, praised and glorified majestic natural phenomena. At the same time, he often tried to understand the essence of questions of existence, to understand philosophical problems, trying various methods of guessing, encountering errors. Therefore, in his creative works one can find two parallels, which simultaneously praised nature and found answers to the eternal questions of the universe.

Poetic work “Nature is a sphinx. And the more true it is…” was created in the author’s advanced age. Tyutchev lived through the last years of his life and understood this perfectly, but continued to unravel the secrets of our world. However, he didn't succeed. It was in 1869 that the poet refused to seek the truth. He expresses the opinion that nature is the great temptress. And she will never reveal the truth to an ordinary, earthly person. Although, on the other hand, Fyodor Tyutchev says that humanity itself decided to believe and look for some secrets. Perhaps they never existed, and no!

Analysis of the poem - Nature - the sphinx...

Tyutchev’s “country” is unusual - it is sometimes flooded with sunlight, sometimes covered in darkness, but always recognizable and close. If you start to remember F. I. Tyutchev’s poems about nature, then, probably, most people will first of all come to mind “Spring Thunderstorm”: “I love a thunderstorm in early May...”

Indeed, the poet very often turned to pictures of spring, pouring rain, and bird noise. Tyutchev’s nature often “experiences” purely human emotions. The image of “smiling”, “laughing” nature runs through the poet’s entire work as a counterbalance to his sad reflections on existence, death, the universe, harmony, and “ancient chaos”. How often do we come across such phrases in Tyutchev’s poetry as “The azure of heaven laughs”, “The sun is shining, the waters are sparkling / There is a smile on everything, there is life in everything.” There are many similar lines: everything smiles - spring, the sun, water, the earth itself. Even in autumn nature, the poet sees “a gentle smile of withering.” Here his worldview is close to Pushkin’s, who, as you know, greatly appreciated Tyutchev. But perhaps the latter puts a much greater meaning into the concept of “nature”. For Tyutchev, nature is something grandiose, eternal, infinite, perhaps even synonymous with the universe.

Only in especially bitter moments (there are not so few of them) does nature appear to Tyutchev as a kingdom of emptiness and “eternal meaninglessness.” Tyutchev is characterized by the search for meaning in everything: in the Universe, in existence. This kind of reflection ultimately leads to a strange aphorism:

Nature - sphinx. And the more faithful she is

His temptation destroys a person,

What may happen, no longer

There is no riddle and she never had one.

There is no mystery, but there is “Mother Earth” herself. cannot calm down in bleakness, he again and again turns his face to bright reality. Tyutchev’s lyrics often contain the idea (as old as the world, but taken up by him) that only nature can heal and save a person.

It turns out that, on the one hand, nature is a “sphinx”, and on the other hand, it is a healing power. For those who are at least a little familiar with Tyutchev’s lyrics, this is not surprising. Such contradictions, throwing from one extreme to another, form the basis of the poet’s work. All of his lyrics are based on contrast; they are, as it were, sandwiched between two poles - a feeling of the beauty of existence and a feeling of horror in front of reality. One gets the strange impression that in Tyutchev two radically opposite people coexisted, each of whom saw reality in his own way.

Most often, Tyutchev, of course, admires the world around him, often to the point of self-forgetfulness. Countless quotes from him can be cited as proof of this. The poet responds to all the voices of life, because he sensitively captures all the colors, all the sounds of nature. But no less powerful (especially in later lyrics) is the consciousness of life’s tragedy. And so the world turns from joyful, filled with light and colors into “wild”. Of course, personal experiences played a significant role in such abrupt transitions.

Tyutchev was characterized by the desire to unravel the secrets of the universe, or at least get closer to them, touch them. The universe is eternal; against its background, human life is nothing. Over the years, this begins to worry Tyutchev more and more. He comes to the idea of the “uselessness” of human existence. The fact is indisputable that everyone faces complete destruction and dissolution in the infinity of nature. The poet thought little about death as such; for him it was, rather, a kind of opposite of life, an instant transition from a bright, rich, terribly short human existence to non-existence.

Despite the attitude towards a single life as something insignificant due to its short duration, Tyutchev also asserts something almost the opposite: life is significant because it is a daring challenge to hostile forces. However, such life-affirming thoughts are found relatively rarely in Tyutchev. Another maxim is repeated much more persistently: “Everything is without a trace - and it’s so easy not to be!” The meaninglessness and unjustification of existence depresses the poet more and more with age. He associates life with the “shadow of smoke,” it seems so illusory to him.

Peace, peace, healing - only in “nature - the sphinx”. Apparently, this name was given to nature in moments of severe, hopeless despair. After all, whatever you say, the world around him was always alive for Tyutchev, and not at all stone. And nature has always evoked in the poet purely human feelings that can be experienced
to someone very close. First of all, it is a feeling of admiration.

There is no doubt that nature was included by Tyutchev in that circle of true values, without which, according to the poet, true existence is impossible.

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The quatrain, written at the end of his life, is filled with deep philosophical meaning. Realizing that his earthly path was coming to its logical end, Tyutchev abandoned his attempt to learn the secrets of the universe. He thinks: perhaps there are no mysteries?

Maybe everything is extremely simple? A person comes into this world to simply walk his path and fulfill his destiny. At the same time, many years of diplomatic service taught him to express his opinion in neat, veiled phrases. In one short, laconic quatrain, Tyutchev was able to fit all his thoughts about the meaning of existence. And at the same time, he was able to show the eternal problem of the meaning of existence in a fairly expanded form with a complete phrase.

Written in iambic pentameter, two-syllable foot and encircling rhyme.

For readers captivated by Tyutchev’s work, it is not surprising that all the poet’s works are woven from contrasts. So here, on the one hand, nature is a sphinx, cruel and merciless, mysterious and incomprehensible. On the other hand - There is no riddle and she never had one.

It is inexplicable how two such different people could coexist in a poet at the same time. One admired nature, admired the unique beauty of the world. His early landscape lyrics speak about this especially eloquently. The other was filled with a feeling of bitterness and incomprehensible tragedy, especially at the end of his life’s journey.

What gave rise to such thoughts? Perhaps his personal, unsuccessful life left such an imprint on Tyutchev’s work. But, deprived of the support of his beloved woman, the poet over time began to think more and more about the frailty of existence. Against the background of the majesty of nature, a person’s life no longer seems so significant to him, he no longer attaches such colossal importance to it. It's amazing how personal circumstances influence the creativity of talented people.

Analysis of the poem Nature is the Sphinx. And the more faithful it is... according to plan

Analysis of the poem “Nature is the Sphinx” by Tyutchev

Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev is a master of short and succinct works, both in content and in color. His poems can easily be described by the saying “Brevity is the sister of talent,” since in a few lines the author displays deep philosophical thoughts that cannot always be clearly expressed even in long treatises. The poem "Nature is a Sphinx" is an excellent example of the poet's ability to express a clear and complete thought in just four lines.

Tyutchev raises in his work the problem of philosophical existence, the meaning of life, the meaning of man in the world around him. The poets of his time were divided into philosophers and romantics, smashing the spears of their truth against each other. Fyodor Ivanovich was both a romantic and a philosopher, uniting the irreconcilable aspects of the thoughts of his contemporaries. He did not consider it necessary to spend an already short human life praising the world around him, but believed that it was necessary to understand this world, to look for the meaning of earthly existence.

“Nature is a Sphinx” was written when Tyutchev’s life was already approaching sunset. This is that period in everyone’s life when it is worth looking back at what has been lived and accomplished, to comprehend whether the person left some kind of mark or did he “inherit” it. He refuses to try to comprehend the secrets of the world and the universe not because he has lost faith in the possibility of doing this. The reason for his refusal to search is completely different - the author assumes that man invented all the wonders of nature for himself and believed in them, but in fact “it may turn out that there is no mystery.” Everything can be solved logically, but humanity stubbornly continues to believe in some unsolved miracles, which, in fact, it invented for itself. The poet’s age also affects the mood of the work—nature seems like an eternity, but a meaningless eternity, just like thinking about it.

The poem belongs to the genre of philosophical lyrics. Written in iambic pentameter, disyllabic foot with stress on the second syllable, encircling rhyme. The peculiarity of the composition is contained in the first line - a short strong phrase with a missing verb. It is also a beautiful metaphor - a comparison of nature with a mythological creature that poses unsolvable riddles to travelers it meets. At the same time, nature does not need man and his research, just as the sphinx in her life does not need riddles for anyone. He lives his life, wise and calm.

Nature does not give man clues, since it is independent of him, and the world around him still remains the same sphinx.